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Thursday, April 07, 2016

Socialist Party EC Statement on Euro-referendum

The problem is not the EU … it’s
capitalism

On
23 June you will asked to make a decision on behalf of the minority who own and
control the means of production in Britain: should they stay or should they leave
the EU? Perhaps you ought to feel
flattered that, for once, they have entrusted you with making a decision of
vital importance to them. But our answer, as socialists, is “we are not
interested. Settle the matter yourselves”.

This
is because the problems we and you face as wage and salary workers or their
dependents are caused by the capitalist system of ownership by the few and
production for profit. This system, which requires that making profits comes
before meeting needs, will continue whether Britain is in or out of the EU.
Whichever it is to be, the problems will continue. They will continue for as
long as capitalism does. The only way out is if you, together with wage and
salary workers in the rest of the world, organise democratically to replace
global capitalism by a worldwide classless socialist society of common
ownership and democratic control, with production to satisfy people’s needs not
for profit, and distribution on the principle of “from each according to their
ability, to each according to their needs” not by the amount of money you have
– or don’t have.

The devil you know

Apart
from a few idealists who want to see a Federal European State, the main group
in favour of staying is Big Business.
With good reason, from their point if view. The EU gives them tariff- free
access to a vast single market with common standards. And the EU, negotiating
as a single body with non-member States over trade and other economic matters
and so with more bargaining power, gets them a better deal than if Britain had
to do this on its own.

Other
supporters are the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists who want to protect the EU
subsidies their parts of Britain get. More principled is the position of the
Green Party which wants to defend the free movement of workers throughout the
EU – out of as well as into Britain.

Cameron
claims to have negotiated some fundamental reform of the EU. Actually, he has
done no more than freeze the position of Britain as a non-member of the
Eurozone. He hasn’t undone anything. He hasn’t even stopped immigration which some
mistakenly see as a problem, only held out a hope that it will be less
attractive in a few years. No wonder the Eurosceptics are sceptical.

Basically,
the Stay campaign are campaigning for the status quo. As is the Labour
Party. In other words, capitalism as we
know it, with all the problems it causes, and so not worth supporting even if
it is the devil we know.

The devil you don’t

But
what about the devil we don’t know? Its
supporters are an unsavoury lot. UKippers, Tory backwoodsmen and other xenophobes
plus a few ambitious politicians calculating that leaving will provide them
with a better chance to climb further up the greasy pole. They have some limited
business support, mainly small businesses producing for the home market rather
than for export and some hedge funds that don’t want to be regulated.

The
leave camp are the ones proposing a change, which they claim will be for the
better. But their case is a mixture of wishful thinking and the usual empty
promises of politicians. It doesn’t even make sense from a capitalist point of view.
Certainly, as they claim, outside the EU British capitalism could still have
access to the single EU market, but would no longer have a say in fixing its
rules and regulations. A non-EU Britain could still, as they also claim,
negotiate trade deals with other countries and trading blocs, but on its own
would be in a weaker bargaining position. No wonder Big Business and its
supporters regard them as flat-earthers.

The sovereign has no clothes

One
more respectable argument for leaving than “Keep Immigrants Out” or “Send Them Back”
is that leaving would give back to parliament the “sovereign power” to decide what
laws should apply in Britain.
Capitalism, however, is a single world economic system, which makes
“independence” and “sovereignty” purely formal when it comes to economic
matters. Governments, whatever formal powers they may have, cannot control the
way the profit system works. In fact it’s the other way round. Capitalism is
sovereign and governments have to apply its basic economic law that priority
must be given to profit-making as this was what drives the system.

A
State can choose that its government and parliament take the decisions required
to comply with capitalism’s basic economic law (as the leavers want) or it can
delegate some of these decisions to some inter-governmental body (as at present
and as the stayers support), but in the end it doesn’t matter who makes the
decision. Nor where, whether London or Brussels. the decision is made.

How to vote, then?

You
don’t need to accept the sham choice on offer in this referendum between the
devil you know and the devil you don’t. Leave that choice to those who support capitalism
in one form or another. As we consider
the right to vote as a gain and a possible tool to end capitalism we will be going
to the polling station, to cast a write-in vote for socialism by writing “WORLD
SOCIALISM” across our ballot paper. If you agree with us, we urge you to do the
same.

2 comments:

I like the concept of being part of Europe, but hate Cameron. I like that EU membership gives workers rights, but hate it giving the owning class rights. Was in a genuine conundrum and decided not to vote. But all my forebears were saying "We fought for the vote". What to do? Put 'World Socialism' on the ballot paper. Thank you SPGB for being the light at the end of this channel tunnel.

The European Union is a capitalist business club. Some capitalist want to be in it and some capitalists want to be out of itWhere capitalists dispose of their booty Makes little difference to the working classThe Referendum is a sideshow, the usual political pantomime just another diversion from the real issues and problems we face.